Will the Conservatives on the board please help me understand the GOP’s goal with regard to population?
They don’t want to allow abortions,
Although they seldom admit to it, in the areas where they have control they make it as difficult as possible to get birth control,
They want to lower funding or entirely defund CHiP
They want to lower funding or entirely defund MedicAid (including just for the children)
They are destroying public education
What possible benefit does the GOP see in creating a nation full of sick, unwanted, hungry, ignorant, desperate, children? How can they possibly think that this slate of policies will end in something good?
I guess this comes across as a rant, but it’s an honest question. What is the goal here?
The goal is to force women to give birth against their will because abortion makes them sad. What happens after that doesn’t matter because the forced-birth advocates have had their way.
Ok, since you’re asking an honest question, I’ll give you an honest answer: your question is based on a false premise. Actually on multiple false premises.
This is false. I live now in Indiana. Prior to that I was in North Dakota and other states governed by Republicans. In all such states, there are hundreds of pharmacies selling birth control and numerous clinics and other places that give it away for free. Republicans have not made any effort to stop them from doing so. So you’re factually wrong there.
This is also false. As shown here, spending on Medicaid generally goes up, up, and further up. In the few small cases where it dips, that’s only for a short term before it resumes its upward trajectory. Republicans have controlled at least on house on Congress for nearly all of the past 25 years, so plainly they’re ok with Medicaid funding going continually higher, not lower.
Also false. No Republican has advanced any bill to destroy public education.
Now you’ve seen that your question is based on false premises, so I presume you agree that it’s not a valid question.
Depends on if the dispensing pharmacist decides whether they want to give you plan B or not, apparently. A choice enabled by Republicans. Further, simply because one at this time has options to purchase birth control doesn’t mean efforts aren’t underway to erode programs and protections for family planning services and public health initiatives that promote birth control. We know how you guys work… you’re like rats that nibble away at the edges until nothing is left. No, no, it’s not the abortions… it’s a safety issue! Those clinics have to have halls 6 feet wide… and doctors with hospital permissions… and ultrasounds… and yadda yadda, but you can still get an abortion! Until you can’t. Don’t be ridiculous, of course Republicans are anti-birth control… or at least a sizable and powerful portion of them are, and it comes of working in lock-step with the religious right. https://www.populationinstitute.org/external/Senseless_The_War_on_Birth_Control.pdf
I think deep underneath the opposition to abortion, birth control and sex ed is the feeling that premarital sex is a bad thing for women to have, and so there should be as many negative consequences as possible so that more women will remain virginal for their husbands. The clearest demonstration of this is the negative outcry that came about as a result of the invention of the HPV vaccine. If girls get the vaccine then the prospect of cervical cancer can no longer be used convince her that sex is dangerous.
As for their opposition to social programs to help children, that is simply because such programs usually involve a leveling of the playing field, which would cause their status to shift down.
It is nothing more than a manufactured wedge issue for them. Nothing else.
Whip their base into a froth about killing babies = win at the polls.
Indeed abortion generally fits better with republicans who would prefer to not have to pay welfare for poor kids and unwed mothers.
Their appeal to religion prohibiting it is thin at best. IIRC the bible barely mentions it and says something along the lines of a woman being compensated with a goat if someone causes her to abort her pregnancy.
Which is why I am skeptical that the GOP will actually resolve this. There is no benefit to them of resolving this. The usefulness is having this as a permanently UNRESOLVED issue (keeping the bases whipped up = votes & money, votes & money).
This is why I specifically asked the Conservatives to answer. I do actually want to know what their thinking is. Please let them talk.
A few of the GOP policies that tend to make birth control harder to get (especially for poor people):
Allowing employers to specifically forbid birth control coverage as part of their health benefit plans. (Affect will be greatly exacerbated if they succeed in destroying Obamacare.)
Allowing pharmacists to decide which prescriptions they will/will not fill based upon their personal religions. This does not only apply to Plan B; I disagree with their thinking there, but I understand where they are coming from. Many Catholic and various types of Protestant churches believe contraception is wrong, and there are stores which will refuse these prescriptions.
Defunding Planned Parenthood. PP does not do abortions. The primary effect of defunding PP would be to prevent needed health screenings and make birth control prescriptions more difficult/expensive to obtain.
Preventing State health programs from handing out free condoms
Defunding or allowing opt-out for Health education and sex-ed in schools. (People grow up not knowing birth control exists, or how to get it, or how to use it properly.)
And yes, there are many places in the USA with only one pharmacy in a reasonable driving distance.
What I see is that you are a Republican devotee with very little idea of what your party is actually doing. Let me fight your ignorance:
See above re: undue burdens and birth control
Congress let the funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program expire last year. They later provided limited funds in the continuing resolution, but have consistently attempted to defund as every deadline approaches.
But there’s benefit in coming as close to resolving it everywhere as they possibly can. Should Roe v Wade be reversed, that won’t necessarily eliminate the practice of abortion; it’ll simply allow states to impose draconian restrictions on pregnant women in states where people are okay with giving the state that kind of power over women’s bodies. Red state legislatures will try to outdo themselves with harsh criminal prosecution and sentencing. Abortion would still probably be legal in states like California, New York, and others. They could, and probably would, still push for a constitutional amendment to ban abortion. They’d go after gay marriage for good measure. Religious conservatives play the victim card well, claiming that their culture is being robbed from them.
But if you are opposed to abortion, logically the way to reduce its incidence is to make birth control more widely available. Fewer unwanted pregnancies, less need for abortion. So why are they raising the hurdles for women to have access to birth control? Because, as stated above, it is really about control of women’s sexual freedom.
I haven’t done a poll but I’m guessing a lot of the people who feel a moral opposition to abortions also feel a moral opposition to birth control. And there’s probably also a significant overlap of people who feel a moral opposition to sex. Their ideal is based on some imaginary view of the “good old days” when good girls stayed virgins and nice boys respected their decision.
You’re confusing making birth control hard to get with not paying for it. Truly an apples/oranges comparison. By your standard the Republicans have prohibited anyone from getting anything that isn’t paid for or in part by the government.